Chapter 58 The Holdout

• The city hums under the weight of winter — low sodium lights flicking down cracked alleys where Ellerei drifts with her hood up, breath sharp, steps too soft to echo on the salt-dusted pavement.
• She ditched her burner two blocks back — SIM card crushed under her boot heel in a gutter that still stinks of old rain.
• Bishop taught her how to vanish. Knox made her want to be found. Both of those truths gnaw her ribs raw while she slips past the neon buzz of half-shut bars and the rattle of city buses hauling ghosts back and forth across the cracked grid.